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Looking for fall contest ideas? Fall is the perfect time to run a contest. With cooler weather, bright autumn leaves, football, pumpkin spice everything, apple cider, and outdoor farmers’ markets and festivals your fans are looking for ways to enjoy the season. September, October, and November contest ideas make autumn fun for your brand!
Your brand gets valuable data that you need for the holiday shopping season. Participants get a treat before the busy end-of-the-year holiday season sets in. For brands, fall contest ideas offer the perfect opportunity to win new customers and reward your loyal customers. It’s a win-win.
15 Fall Contest Ideas to Promote Your Brand
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Here are 15 fall contest ideas to promote your brand with sweepstakes and contests this fall. Read on to learn exactly how fall contest ideas can help you use the change of the season to boost fall sales and brand awareness before the holidays.
Article Contents
IN THIS ARTICLE:
- What contests should you run in the fall?
- What are some fall contest ideas?
- What sweepstakes ideas should I promote in September?
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Fall Contest Idea #1: Enjoy Pumpkin Spice Recipe Contest
One of the best parts of the fall season is enjoying all of the different desserts and drinks that can be made with pumpkin spice. Get your fans excited about fall by running a pumpkin spice contest. Have your contest participants do a bake-off or show ways in which they enjoy pumpkin spice during the fall.
This type of contest that includes user-generated content (UGC) such as food photography and cooking videos has a huge chance of going viral. It’s even better if participants are able to use your brand’s product in their pumpkin spice contest UGC.
Fall Contest Idea #2: Great Outdoors Fall Photo Contest
Have your participants submit their photos of them enjoying nature during the fall. These best photos will show the colors of autumn and get your fans excited about the changing seasons.
This type of fall contest idea is especially effective if your brand is a product that is seasonally used or only available during the fall and winter months. You can do also ask participants to submit photos and videos of their favorite places to travel to during the autumn season.
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Fall Contest Idea #3: Choose Our New Fall Theme
Whether it’s a new fall flavor or product line for your brand, hold a contest that allows you fans to choose the direction for your fall marketing strategy. You can have them vote for their best choice when they enter for a chance to win a prize for free.
You can also hold a live event where you reveal the new fall theme or product for fall. Participants who have entered to win a prize for free will be the first to see the exclusive reveal. This can help to create some serious FOMO among your existing customers and curious new fans to come see what your fall sweepstakes or contest promotion is all about.
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Fall Contest Idea #4: Say Goodbye to Summer Contest
Help your fans and customers celebrate the start of fall with a say goodbye to summer contest idea. For this contest, you should have participants share themselves enjoying the last moments of summer by sharing their favorite moments with your brand.
Add an element of urgency to your contest to help participants stay engaged. Give them a countdown until fall to buy remaining summer products to boost sales of remaining summer inventory.
You can use the early-bird angle and turn it into a promo that offers exclusive access to your fall products at the end of the contest. Don’t forget to announce your end of season specials on social media during your contest.
Fall Contest Idea #5: Halloween Costume Contest
With the fall comes Halloween. If you’re looking for Halloween contest ideas, fall contest ideas that generate tons of UGC include best costume contest, trick-or-treat Halloween contest, fall bake-off contest with your favorite Halloween treats, or even a pet Halloween costume contest. When it comes to fall contest ideas involving Halloween, the ways to make your promotion unique are virtually endless.
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Fall Contest Idea #6: Back-to-School Fall Contest Ideas
Back-to-school fall contest ideas increase your social media presence during the fall when you need to make sales of items for back-to-school. Run a social media contest that gives away helpful things that kids and their parents need to go back to school.
To help people find your back to school marketing promotion easily, consider creating a dedicated hashtag for your back to school promotion.
Some ideas on creating branded hashtags for a back-to-school fall contest:
#BacktoSchoolHaul
#BacktoSchoolGift
#BacktoSchoolPrep
#BacktoSchoolSelfie
#BacktoSchoolScholarship
#FirstDayofSchool
You can give away a school supplies prizes, computer contest prize, a makeover for back-to-school prize, a writing contest to win a scholarship, and more. The prize ideas for back-to-school sweepstakes should be relevant to the audience of students and their parents. You can also do a First Day of School contest idea where participants share their favorite moment from the first day of back to school.
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Fall Contest Idea #7: Fall Product Makeover
Have your fans choose the new seasonal design for your product with a fall product makeover contest. This fall contest idea is also a great opportunity to introduce a seasonal product with the fall product makeover as an update. This fall contest idea can also help reactivate inactive customers to let them know that there is something new with your fall branding.
A fall social media contest campaign can help to bring more fans to your social media accounts. You’ll also get fans to share your new branding which can help your entire audience see the new updates before they visit your brand’s website on their own.
Fall Contest Idea #8: Run a Fall Contest With a Co-sponsor
Now is a great time to team up with brands as the holiday shopping season is just around the corner. Using a fall contest idea to promote your brand collaboration is a great way to get some buzz about your brand and tap into your contest co-sponsor’s audience at the same time.
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Fall Contest Idea #9: Football Fall Contest
Fall starts football season so you can if you can become an authorized sponsor of your local team then you can run football giveaway for tickets to the game. An Authorized Sponsor is a company that has been designated by the Sponsor (in this case, the National Football League of America) to act on behalf the Sponsor.
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Become an NFL Sponsor to Run NFL Contests and Sweepstakes
Becoming an NFL sponsor will give your brand the right to leverage NFL marks, NFL brands in your sweepstakes and contest marketing. The partnerships may include commercial rights, licensing agreements, along with your contest rules.
In 2021, NFL sponsorships brought in nearly $2 billion for the NFL. A partnership also allows the brand sponsor to create NFL team-inspired merch that utilize team colors and logos. Note that without official permission, brands are not permitted to use NFL content or IP.
Football Merch & Tailgating Fall Contest Ideas
If a sports contest as an authorized sponsor is not an option for you, you can still run a football giveaway that gives away football-related merch with your brand on it including backpack, caps, and sweatshirts. Another popular fall contest idea is to run a contest that gives away a tailgating party as a contest prize.
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Fall Contest Idea #10: Thanksgiving Contest Ideas to Start the Holiday Shopping Season
You can use a Thanksgiving contest idea to celebrate the end of the fall season and the start of the holiday shopping season. To boost engagement, consider making your contest into a community event that promotes sharing with others. For example, you can run a raffle where you’ll match the raffle prize with a donation to a charity for Thankgiving.
You can also run a Thanksgiving help contest that gives away a prepared Thanksgiving meal to a lucky winner. Other options for a Thanksgiving contest prize include gift cards and shopping sprees to help your fans get a head start on their holiday shopping.
The bottom line is that fall contest ideas for Thanksgiving will get tons of traffic and buzz. Try an autumn contest especially if you are looking to attract holiday shoppers to your brand’s ecommerce website.
Fall Contest Idea #11: Fall Rewards Contest for Seasonal UGC
Get your fans to create UGC that celebrates the fall season with a fall rewards contest for your most loyal fans. Remember, that the most effective way to boost your sales fast is to target existing customers. Make sure that you promote your fall contest idea to your customer loyalty program list segment so that you can send then exclusive offers that are available to “VIP Customers Only.”
Once your fans see the outcome of your contest on social media, they will be intrigued and will be more interested to join your rewards program and take action on customer loyalty incentives. Using a fall contest as a seasonal promotional opportunity also ensures that you schedule a time regularly to reconnect with your customers by running your contest.
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Fall Contest Idea #12: Fall Getaway Contest
Fall is a perfect time for a travel contest or sweepstakes. Help your fans getaway with a staycation or outdoor enthusiast camping prize. Combined with the brilliant colors of nature during the autumn season a fall getaway contest can inspire your fans to create some exciting photo and video UGC.
Fall Contest Idea #13: Fall Comfort Contest
Help your fan connect with the emotions of the autumn season with a fall contest idea that celebrates comfort, warmth, and the home. You can give away prizes that help your fans improve their homes with better storage. You can also host a DIY photo contest where your fans share their crafts, decor, and other projects that they made as contest entries for your fall contest.
You can use this as an opportunity to promote the newest fall seasonal items that are available for purchase from your brand. Create a fall essentials guide and make sure to share it on your social media accounts and in your contest email marketing follow-ups.
Fall Contest Idea #14: Fall Contest With an Exclusive Offer or Product Deal
Use this type of contest to give your fans access to an exclusive deal on your best selling products in a bundle. You can create a product bundle that is exclusively available for a limited-time only during your fall contest. This will help your participants to get excited about taking advantage of the special offer, helping you to maximize sales.
Fall Contest Idea #15: Autumn Video Short Contest
A fall contest idea that helps create excitement and suspense among your brand’s fans is easy with an outdoor sports and action video contest for fall. Have your fans capture some fast-action video content that they share by hashtagging with your custom branded hashtag for your contest. Then get participants explicit permission to use the UGC in video shorts to promote your brand.
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Last Steps: Fall Contest Ideas Get Your Brand Noticed
Fall is a great time to reconnect with your existing customers and find new customers before the busy holiday season begins. If your products are only available annually in the fall, running a fall contest can also help you build a customer list. Fall is also a huge time for non-profits and charity organizations that run fundraising sweepstakes or raffles to bring in donations. By recreating these proven fall contest ideas, your brand can tap into more leads, sales, and referrals this September, October, and November.
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